Expectations
by cas.ffn
Summary: Days before his death, Future Gohan reflects on his life after the androids appeared, and his failures.


Gohan was sitting on an outcrop of rock that gave him a view of a vast lake and the trees off in the horizon. Gohan spent many mornings of his adult life in this fashion, sitting under cloudless skies and admiring the beauty of nature that somehow avoided destruction at the hands of the Artificial Humans even now, thirteen years after their appearance. He had seen much of the world since then, as he left his parents' house years ago when he accepted that he must fight the androids, and didn't see his family or friends often anymore.

Now, he woke up every morning realizing he was only crawling closer to the end. Gohan didn't want his mother, or Bulma, or Trunks, or the Ox-King to remember him as a worm, struggling woefully against the villains which ravaged their beautiful home, after he met that end. He didn't want them to see the way his duty to the world was tearing him apart, breaking him down without rebuilding him stronger like similar challenges did to his father.

Goku Son… Gohan's father was truly an astonishing hero. Everyone had said that Gohan being the son of such a prodigy of a fighter and a stubborn, powerful woman like Chi-Chi was a sure sign that he would turn out to be more incredible than anything the world had seen - perhaps even stronger than his father.

Thinking on that, he scoffed.

How wrong they had been.

Gohan's gaze was drawn to his left arm. The dark blue sleeve of his gi undershirt draped down over what was left of it. The senzu beans had covered the scars he would have attained before, but he had used up the last of them by now. He considered how strange it was that after thirteen years, the damage his endless defeats had dealt to him was only just beginning to show. Every day, or perhaps every moment, he felt, was punctuated by failure in his quest, capped off by a natural increase in power that felt all too insignificant compared to the leaps and bounds in strength he saw from his father, and even Vegeta, on Namek. The futility of it all… the slow, painful burnout… Gohan felt it was unbearable.

"Daddy…" Gohan didn't realize that the word left his lips, or that he had begun to tremble. In that moment, he was a little boy again, watching the Ginyu Force slaughter Krillin and Vegeta. Or facing Nappa, a beast many times his power, unable to bring himself to attack out of fear even as he was wide open. Gohan could have flown to the water, looked at his reflection, and been convinced he was staring down a child with a small body, scared face, and pudgy cheeks.

The androids made him become that boy again.

"It's all so unfair." Gohan raised himself to his feet and, for a moment, escaped the confines of his mind as he absorbed the harmony of nature. Something that beautiful didn't have the harsh tools necessary to create power as immense and monstrous as those machines.

At least, that's what he would have thought if he hadn't seen his father in action and watched him match monstrous powers step-for-step for years.

"Father." This time, Gohan consciously formed the sounds. It took effort. He had not thought very deeply about his father for a long time. He thought back to his first defeats at the hands of the androids, and how much more infuriating they became after he unlocked Super Saiyan and still was no match despite what he had seen his father do to Frieza and despite what everyone said he had the potential to be when they saw him in battle. "Father, is this truly all the power Super Saiyan gave you?" He was sure that if his father were here, Super Saiyan would let him beat the androids like it let him destroy Frieza. "When you faced Frieza with that power, it seemed like there was no one you couldn't beat." Gohan's ki began to seep from his pores, white flame rising from his body and threatening the air around him with its heat and presence.

"So many fights you won up 'till then… you never knew how to give up. Even when none of us could win on Namek. Even when Frieza came to Earth to kill us all and no one among us stood a chance, and you were still far off in space… you found a way to come to us and protect our home."

"Father, if you could do it—" Gohan's brow furrowed as he continued, "If you could protect the world—no, even at least your friends—from anything and anyone who would do them harm, no matter how powerful the enemy was—" Gohan, in his anger, accidentally released a microscopic beam of energy into the water. It expanded and it burst, causing the lake's contents to geyser up into the air.

"Father, if you could do anything and save anyone, why can't I make a difference for the Earth?!" Gohan shouted into the sky. The flow of Gohan's ki split as he lost his grip on it. The transformation was all too familiar now. Some of his ki burrowed back into his body, and a slight shift in its composition caused a change in all of his cells. His muscles bulged outward, his hair turned gold and his aura, too, became a roaring golden flame. Gohan's anger burst past the control of his mind, and his frustration overtook him.

Gohan's rage bubbled up and tore itself free from his lungs in a cry that was equal parts thirst for blood and desire to protect his home. He screamed to the sky for an answer.

Neither the sky nor the thunderclouds looming over him held any answer.

The energy produced by Gohan's rage clawed at everything around him. It strove for the sky and wormed its way into the ground simultaneously. The aura of the legendary warrior, the Super Saiyan, was alive and furious, an entire organ that betrayed Gohan's frustration and humiliation from thirteen years of defeat for both himself and his world. The death of his father to a heart virus, of all things. The deaths of Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Vegeta to their duty and pride. The death of Piccolo, the last man he could rely on as a father after his true one passed. The deaths of thousands and thousands of people who would never have their names known and would never even understand the feud that resulted in the creations of the machines that saw fit to kill them simply because they weren't powerful enough to resist.

Gohan's aura lashed out at the air and tore chunks from the rock he stood upon. The tendrils of golden flame ate the rocks—they vaporized the earth until there was nothing left.

Thunder struck down in reaction to Gohan's transformation. It mocked the weakness of the half-Saiyan. The sky asked, "What makes you think someone as pitiful as you is fit to fight for this world?"

The vast expanse of nature cried out to him. It begged for him to be the savior of the world. It asked why he failed his home.

"Why can't you be more like your father?" The earth cried. "Why can't you rise like he did when we needed a hero the most?"

"Gohan Son, why haven't you been the hero everyone needs you to be?" The sea asked.

"Gohan Son, save us! You're the son of Goku; you're the only one who can be our savior!" The souls of the murdered pleaded with him. "Gohan Son, why have you left us to die?!" They screamed. They begged for another chance at life, and wanted to know why he abandoned them.

"Gohan Son, you could never be a hero!" The sky jeered at him.

One final cry of rage sliced through the air which it seemed no human lungs could produce. This wasn't like the cries of battle martial artists were known to let out. There was no deeper meaning behind the use of his voice here, even though his spirit and mind were aligned.

The golden fire swallowed him. A dark, twisted fire swallowed the world. Gohan screamed out that he was trying his best, that he wanted to save them all, that he was so sorry he failed them! He promised to meet the androids at every city, every mountain, every small village and every home until they were no more or he had been proven to be forever incapable of filling the role of Earth's protector through his death. His sorrow tore through him like an axe through a block of wood, and for a glimpse of a moment, he thought that he saw the clear sky past the deep, impenetrable clouds which had looked down on him for the past decade.

And all at once, it was gone. Gohan began to think again instead of simply feel, and his grief and anger faded. The energy that was pouring from him like a waterfall receded. The golden power of the legendary Super Saiyan left him. The sky and the world turned their backs, as he was no longer worth their time or attention. The water stopped flowing into the air, and returned to its place in the ground. The hellfires which had consumed his mind receded to places unknown. The crystal-clear sky he could almost touch was again lost above the clouds.

The weight of the dead who he should have been able to save, however, never left his shoulders.

Even though the volume of the lake had not changed, Gohan did not see a lake when he looked down upon the body of water now.

Gohan turned and began to fly away, feeling that all along he had merely been looking upon a puddle.


End file.
